Philosophy, Engineering, and the Sciences

Abstract

Philosophers don’t like details when it comes to facts. They are perfectly happy to worry to death the myriad meanings of “meaning”. But when it comes to working though the factual components of what are fundamentally empirical claims the work is slim. And because some of what looks like a philosophical claim, but for what is really an empirical claim, the results of not finding out what is really the case can result in some philosophical claims appearing rather stupid. One I have in mind concerns the relation between science and technology, or more specifically between science and engineering.